Abstract

The present paper pretends to analyze the financial and economic effect that the application of the Interpretation of the International Financial Reporting Interpretations Committee about Members' Shares in Co-operative Entities and Similar Instruments could have in co-operatives.
This Interpretation states that shares should be classified as financial liabilities in most cases. In Spain, the treatment that the different accounting regulations that have been current until now was completely different. Shares were considered as equity. In this sense, it’s true that this problem has been discussed during last years between spanish investigators, but the legal change is now, so the consequences will appear from now on.
Because of this, we pretend to quantify, using the method case, the effect that this legal change could have in the main ratios used on the economic and financial analysis. As a conclusion, we can affirm that an important variation is observed, but the amount of it depends on the initial level of equity in the co-operative.